An agent enters a village bordering the verdant Western Ghats forests of Shivamogga district, in the guise of being a scrap merchant or ginger dealer. Acquaintances are made, and a proposition is put forth: start cultivating lucrative ganja (cannabis) instead of the low-profit paddy.
With drought taking its hold in the area and the prices of agricultural produce crashing, many farmers in the region have taken up this proposition — often, at the cost of forests. These agents have set the stage for them: cash advances and ganja seed packets. All that the farmer needs to do is to plant them amidst their maize or ginger fields or in the neighbouring forest areas. The market and demand for this has been set up in urban centres of Bengaluru, Mangaluru and Mumbai.
Chethan (name changed), a farmer in a hamlet in the Anandapuram grama panchayat limits, took up the offer after his traditional means of livelihood started to buckle. “When the cultivation of paddy and ginger could no longer sustain us due to the persistent drought, it became inevitable to take up ganja cultivation,” he said. He was arrested last year after his cultivation was discovered, and now has returned to his village on bail.
Roiled region
The persistent drought in the region — despite being one of the traditionally high rain-fall receiving area of the state — has seen many more farmers shift to this clandestine cultivation. Superintendent of Police Abhinav Khare said that in the five months since October 2016, 44 cases related to illegal cultivation and transportation of marijuana had been registered in the district — a significant spike of 33 cases booked under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act in 2015.
This has led to 89 people being arrested, 400 kg of ganja seized, and even the booking of two habitual offenders under the Goondas Act (Karnataka Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Bootleggers, Drug-Offenders, Gamblers, Goondas, Immoral Traffic Offenders and Slum-Grabbers Act) “We are probing the links of those arrested to a wider drug-peddling racket,” he said.
Agrarian distress
A major contributing factor to this shift towards the illegal cultivation is the drought. The past two monsoons have seen a rainfall deficit ranging from 26% to 37%, leading to over 530 hectares of areca plantations drying up.
Ganja cultivation is also high-risk, high-return. Paddy was being cultivated under rain-fed method, however, and the prices do not justify the input costs. According to the Karnataka Agriculture Prices Commission, the cost of cultivation of 100 kg of paddy here is ₹2,800. The prevailing market rate is around ₹1,500. Even ginger, which saw an eight-fold rise in acreage after prices hit ₹15,000 per 100 kg, has now slumped to barely ₹2,200.
In comparison, a kilo of ganja powder — from barely 20 plants — can give around ₹20,000, according to sources. K.C. Basavarajappa, a social activist, said ignorant small and marginal farmers were liable to be sucked into the racket.
Forests suffer
A consequence of this is that forest fringes are often targeted. Officials said farmers looking to avoid the criminalities associated with cultivating cannabis on their lands, were burning portions of forest land to clear a patch for cultivation.
Forest Department officials suspect the fire in the Ambligolla reserve forest on February 18 — which resulted in 250 acres of forest being reduced to cinders — was done by potential ganja growers. The suspicion comes out of experience. In 2012, 500 acres were burnt in the Shettyhalli Wildlife Sanctuary and the next year, excise and police officials found ganja cultivation in those patches.
Coincidentally, these cleared portions are seeing a rise in applications for regularisation of unauthorised cultivation of forest/government lands under the Forest Rights Act or under the Bagair Hukum scheme. Channabasappa K., Additional Deputy Commissioner said these applications were being rejected, and the police and excise departments requested to provide information on their arrests to weed out these applications.
The hills and mountains of the district provide a fertile ground for cannabis cultivation, and it has seeped into a few traditions of the region. Francis Buchanan-Hamilton, the Scottish physician and geographer with the British East India Company, had noted ganja cultivation during his travels in the late 18th century. A mixture of flowers, ganja seeds and semi-liquid jaggery is a drink made by farmers (similar to bhaang in the North). These used to be prepared in the region in moderate quantities during the harvest season.
